scientists find out why some places just feel haunted
Ever walk into an old house or a dark, gloomy place and felt like something is just... off? Now we know why.
Admit it, even if you're as skeptical as can be, you've been in a place that just felt kind of weird. Like there was a presence there. When I recently spent a night on the Queen Mary, some spots on the emptiest decks felt as if there was some kind of tension in the air just, waiting for us, biding its time in hiding. It's actually a selling point for the ship's middle of the night tours pitched to aspiring ghost hunters; that eerie feeling everyone seems to have on board at least once. But what is it?
Well, the reason is the same thing that makes suspenseful moments in horror movies feel nearly unbearably tense: infrasound. It's sound we can't hear as an audible signal, but feel through the vibrations of the air on our skin, spiking our cortisol levels, confusing our fight or flight response, and making us irritable, and old boilers, ventilation systems, and poorly secured pipes are a great source. So, given the right setting, late at night, empty building, an already tense person, and the feeling that something is watching you just grows and grows.
We already had a pretty good idea this is what happens, but a new, admittedly small, study from Canada actually measured the effect and found that it was enough to account for stories about places "holding negative energy" and just feeling downright hostile to human presence. It's also a good reminder that we aren't just limited to our five senses, and our bodies can process stimuli in ways we're not normally taught to consider, making for unnerving and unpleasant experiences seemingly out of the blue.
It's a similar problem as sleep paralysis, which contributes to reports of evil paranormal entities stalking us at night. Few people know how common it is and how our minds can malfunction if we wake up in the wrong order as far as our biochemistry and nervous system are concerned, and because it feels all too real – because it's very real to us – we get myths and firsthand accounts of things that seem impossible, things we should fear, but aren't really out to get us.
If we wanted to prevent encounters with the would-be supernatural, we'd invest in sturdier construction, fever things vibrating on a regular basis, or devices that can emit their own waves to counter the infrasound emissions. Our buildings would be quieter and more peaceful, and we'd be less upset and anxious. Although a lot of ghost hunters looking for the thrill of scaring themselves with the help of all that infrasound would probably be really, really disappointed...
See: Scatterty KR, VonStein D, Prichard LB, Franczak BC, Hamilton TJ and Schmaltz RM (2026) Infrasound exposure is linked to aversive responding, negative appraisal, and elevated salivary cortisol in humans. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 20:1729876. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2026.1729876
